In 2011, Yves Pigneur, a management and information systems professor, and Alexander Osterwalder, a business consultant, created the Business Model Canvas.
When completed, the Business Model Canvas provides a great snapshot of a company’s business, simplifying complex business ideas, providing a clear understanding of operations, identifying gaps and opportunities, fostering collaboration, and allowing for quick adaptation to change. It is a valuable tool for businesses in fast-paced environments.
This model is relatively simple and consists of a template with only nine elements representing the fundamental divisions of an organization. With this structured format, the BMC provides a comprehensive company overview.
The canvas is divided into nine building blocks, which are as follows:
- Customer Segments: The first building block focuses on identifying the target audience and the different groups of customers a business is serving. Companies need to understand the needs and preferences of each customer segment to create tailored solutions and provide an exceptional customer experience.
- Value Proposition: The second building block outlines a business’s unique value to its customers. A value proposition is a statement that describes the benefits a customer will receive from using a company’s products or services. It should clearly articulate the value a business brings to the market and why it is better than the competition.
- Channels: The third building block represents the various methods businesses use to reach and communicate with their customers. This includes physical and digital channels, such as social media, websites, and email marketing. The goal is to identify the most effective channels to reach target customers and deliver the value proposition.
- Customer Relationships: The fourth building block outlines the type of relationship businesses have with their customers. This includes how they interact, communicate, and provide support. Building solid relationships with customers is essential for long-term success.
- Revenue Streams: The fifth building block outlines the ways businesses generate revenue. This can include different pricing models, such as subscription-based, one-time purchase, or pay-per-use. The goal is to identify the most effective revenue streams that align with the value proposition and customer segments.
- Key Resources: The sixth building block represents the critical assets businesses need to operate, such as technology, equipment, or intellectual property. Identifying the critical resources needed to deliver the value proposition and create a sustainable business model is essential.
- Key Activities: The seventh building block outlines the critical actions businesses must take to deliver the value proposition, such as product development, marketing, and customer service. The key activities should align with the business’s objectives and customer needs.
- Key Partnerships: The eighth building block outlines the important relationships and collaborations businesses must develop to operate effectively, such as suppliers, vendors, or strategic partners. Partnerships can help companies access key resources and expertise and expand their reach in the market.
- Cost Structure: The final building block outlines the costs of delivering the value proposition and operating the business. This includes fixed costs such as rent and salaries and variable costs such as raw materials and marketing expenses. Understanding the cost structure is essential to developing a sustainable business model and maximizing profitability.
The Business Model Canvas is a visual framework that helps businesses develop and refine their business models. It enables enterprises to identify the critical components of their business, how they fit together, and how they create value for customers. By focusing on these nine building blocks, companies can create a clear and concise operational plan, understand their customers’ needs, and develop a sustainable and profitable business model.
The Business Model Canvas is further explained in detail in this great video from The Business Channel
How the Business Model Canvas can Help Your Content Marketing
There are many benefits of a content strategy for non-media companies–customer acquisition costs are expensive, churn can be high, and customers just expect more out of their interactions with the businesses they love.
Before developing a Content Strategy, it’s essential to understand a business in its entirety. It’s the only way to start on the right path immediately and have the right results in the long term.
There are a multitude of frameworks to help achieve this understanding, each of varying complexity. The Business Model Canvas is a more detailed approach and brings clarity to the business as a whole–the outcomes don’t exclusively benefit marketing or content strategy.
That said, The Business Model Canvas can be very helpful for developing a clear and concise strategy for creating, and distributing content and then measuring its effectiveness.
By using the Business Model Canvas, content marketers can identify the key components of their content marketing strategy and how they fit together, which can help them to create a more effective and targeted approach.
Some of the ways that the Business Model Canvas can be helpful for content marketing:
- It can help identify customer segments (and by extension–Customer Personas): By using the Business Model Canvas, content marketers can identify the different customer segments they need to be targeting with their content marketing efforts. This can help them to tailor their content to the buyer’s journey for each specific segment, which can increase engagement and conversions and generally lead to higher ROI from content marketing.
- It can clarify value proposition: The Business Model Canvas helps clarify the company’s value proposition, which content marketers can then make sure is communicated throughout customer-facing content.
- It clarifies distribution channels: The Business Model Canvas can help content marketers to choose the right channels to distribute their content, based on the preferences of their target audience. For example, if their target audience prefers Linkedin as a social channel, marketers can focus their efforts on creating content for that platform.
- It defines customer relationships: The Business Model Canvas assessment of customer relationships not only looks at how customers are acquired but also how they are retained and grown. Effectively, it is a framework to think about the customer journey and the impact that content can have on that journey. This is a fundamental understanding that any content strategist requires before they create a content plan.
Apart from being a valuable tool for a company as a whole, The Business Model Canvas can be a valuable tool for content marketers who want to develop a clear and effective strategy for their content marketing efforts. Though it is detailed, it should be considered as a possible framework to be used to understand a company before defining the content strategy.
